With the advent of the Internet and other high-bandwidth electronic communication systems and the consumer demand for information, interactive gaming and electronic entertainment such as video on-demand, there has been a substantial need for reliable and affordable high bandwidth mediums for facilitating data transmissions between service providers and their customers. In relation to the requirement that such mediums be affordable to consumers and structurally attainable in a cost-effective manner for providing service to customers involves using already existing copper wire telephone systems (plain old telephone system or POTS) infrastructure.
Relating specifically to the adaptation of POTS telephone lines to carry data at a higher bandwidth is the adaptation of a digital connection known as ISDN (Integrated Services digital Network) in which a date rate of 64 Kilobits per second is supported. Most recently, ISDN services has largely been replaced in certain parts of the world by broadband internet services, such as Digital Subscriber Line (xDSL). Standards and protocols for many flavors of DSL have been proposed such as VDSL (for high speed digital transmission over short distances), HDSL, SDSL (with symmetric transmission speeds) and ADSL (with asymmetric uplink and downlink transmission speeds). Relating specifically to ADSL, ADSL essentially operates by formatting signals using various Time Domain Equalization techniques to send packets over copper wire at high data rates. ADSL is considered advantageous for its ability to provide very high data rates in the downstream (i.e., from service provider to the user) direction by sacrificing speed in the upstream direction. Consequently, end user costs are minimized by providing higher speeds in the most commonly used direction.
Two of the proposed standards for the specific requirements for an ADSL system operation are set forth by the International Telecommunications Union, Telecommunications Standardization Section (ITU-T). A first, conventional, ADSL standard is described in ITU-T Recommendation G.992.1—“Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) Transceivers”, also known as full rate ADSL (G.dmt) which describes three types of system operation modes, Annex A, Annex B and Annex C. Annex A describes the specific requirements for an ADSL system operating in the frequency band above the conventional frequency band employed in the POTS system. Annex B describes the specific requirements for an ADSL system operating in the frequency band above the conventional frequency band employed by ISDN lines as defined in ITU-T recommendation G.961 appendices I and II. Lastly, Annex C describes the specific requirements for an ADSL system operating in the same cable as ISDN as defined in ITU-T recommendation G.961 appendix III. Annex A and B are primarily used in North America and Europe, whereas Annex C (ADSL above POTS) co-existing with TCM-ISDN (Time Compression Multiplexed (TCM) ISDN—a type of “ping-pong” time division transmission) is implemented primarily in Japan. For purposes of clarity, the body of G.992.1 is fully incorporated herein by reference.
A second, more recently proposed ADSL standard is the G.992.2 or ‘G.lite’ standard, further described in ITU-T Recommendation G.992.2—“Splitterless Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) Transceivers”, which comprise Annex A (FDM ADSL above POTS) mostly implemented in North America, Annex B (ADSL above ISDN) mostly implemented in Europe and Annex C (ADSL above POTS, co-existing with TCM-ISDN) implemented mostly in Japan which is also bodily incorporated by reference herein. The G.lite standard is a variant of the G.992.1 standard, with modifications directed primarily to work in a splitterless environment (i.e., without a splitter at the remote user end to separate the voice traffic from the digital data traffic). ADSL is made available in two modulation schemes known as Discrete Multitone (DMT) and Carrierless Amplitude and Phase (CAP). An asymmetric model such as ADSL complements the residential profile of Internet use: Masses of multi-media and text is transferred downstream, and undemanding levels of traffic make their way upstream.
The present application is directed primarily to the DMT mode of modulation, wherein DMT slices available frequencies into 256 channels of 4.3125 KHz each, within a bandwidth range of 30 KHz to 1104 KHz. Unfortunately, with such a system ISDN signals either co-transmitted in the same wire or provided in close proximity to the ADSL DMT signals can create a significant source of interference. ISDN uses a baseband modulation of different baud rates, such as, for example, 80 KHz for Annex B and 320 KHz for Annex C. However, from the bandwidth allocated for ISDN and ADSL, there is an overlap of bandwidth between the two, and that results in a strong crosstalk from having ADSL and ISDN signal transmission on the same cable bundle as it is found in Japan where Annex C and lesser degree of crosstalk in Europe where Annex B is implemented.
As defined in Annex B of the G.dmt ITU-T recommendation, a new ADSL service might be required to operate over ISDN on the same twisted pair. The partial spectrum overlapping of ISDN into the ADSL bandwidth limits the operation of the ADSL system, as the useful ISDN signal clearly supersedes in this configuration any other noise source. However, in both situations described above, the interference signal presents some statistical properties that can be used to successfully mitigate or eliminate completely the effects of the interference onto the ADSL transmission. These properties originate from the cyclostationary nature of the interference: i.e. interferers and cross-talk statistics are periodic with period equal to some time interval related to the baud rate of the modulated interference signal. A dual definition of cyclostationarity is that frequency-shifted versions of the baud modulated interferer can be highly correlated with the original signal. More formally, a cyclostationary signal is defined as a signal having periodically time-varying second order statistics (i.e. periodic autocorrelation), for example, if a signal x is cyclostationary with a cyclic frequency α, then there is non-zero correlation between the signal x and the same signal x, shifted in frequency by α.
Referring now to FIG. 1, there is shown a graphical representation of a spectrum of a typical ISDN interferer as depicted in ADSL, Annex B. The property of cyclostationarity of the signal can be interpreted from FIG. 1, where each side-lobe of the modulated signal is a filtered replica of the main (base-band) lobe i.e., a strong correlation exists between each side-lobe of the transmitted spectrum. A shaping filter at the transmitter preserves significant energy in the secondary lobes, making it possible to detect strong correlation between adjacent frequency bands in the signal received on the line. Baud-modulated signals such as ISDN, HDSL, SDSL (to name a few) which are used in data communication exhibits cyclostationary property by design, but unlike ISDN, the others do not exhibit a property of a strong correlation of each side lobes of the transmitted spectrum. This property is inherent to the transmission of a flow of statistically independent data symbols, chosen among a given symbol set, each symbol is characterized by a given phase and amplitude and is stationary over a well-specified baud period, determined by the transmitter's modulation rate. The spectrum of such a statistically independent modulated data symbol flow can be seen as repetitive with a frequency identical to the baud rate used for the modulation.
The periodicity of the spectrum is evidenced by the intrinsic cyclostationary property of such baud-modulated signals. The repetition of the spectrum at multiple of the baud rate means that adjacent frequency bands will be correlated even after filtering is used at the transmitter. In some cases, filtering may preserve the energy of the secondary frequency bands, leaving a strong correlation. In other cases, filtering will only leave a small fraction of the energy from the secondary frequency bands in an effort to band-limit the transmitted signals, therefore leaving a small “excess bandwidth” from which correlation still can be seen but with a lesser amplitude.
In a system operating in an Annex C environment, NEXT cross-talk from existing TCM-ISDN is the major performance-limiting impairment for the ADSL DMT transmission. From the property of cyclostationarity of the TCM-ISDN interferer to the ADSL-DMT signal, it is a major factor contributing to crosstalk interference in Annex C environment. In an Annex B system, the ADSL DMT signal is transmitted on the same twisted pair as an already existing ISDN link. As a result, the two signals are partially overlapping channels.
In both cases mentioned above, the property of cyclostationarity is present in the ISDN interference. Exploitation of this signal property can be used to allow the separation of the two temporally and spectrally overlapping communications signals. This can result in an enhanced waveform extraction and digital data detection of the useful ADSL DMT signal.
Crosstalk, is an electrical energy radiating from bundles of wire converging at a service provider's CO that produce an inconvenient disturbance known as Near-End Crosstalk (NEXT) or Far-End Crosstalk (FEXT). Referring to the prior art of FIGS. 2a and 2b, When TCM-ISDN downstream signals wander between channels of different cables, line capacity takes a dive. “Near end” specifies that the interference derives from an adjacent pair of cables at the same location. Usually, the twisted pairs are in the same cable or bundle. Crosstalk is generally characterized as NEXT or FEXT. FEXT is characterized by the disturbing pair's (in this case, the TCM-ISDN signal) source being distant from the disturbed pair's (in this case the ADSL signal) receiver. In this case, the disturbing signal propagates down the disturbing pair, crosstalk into the disturbed pair and propagates the rest of the distance along the disturbed pair into the disturbed pair's receiver.
Therefore, there is a need in the art of ADSL systems for a more efficient method and system for reducing crosstalk, and to overcome the aforementioned interference problems.